up a creek

Idioms  

1. Also, up shit creek; up the creek (without a paddle). In trouble, in a serious predicament, as in If the check doesn't arrive today I'm up a creek, or The car wouldn't start, so I was up the creek without a paddle. This slangy idiom conjures up the image of a stranded canoeist with no way of moving (paddling) the canoe. President Harry S. Truman used the first term in a letter in 1918. The first variant is considered vulgar.

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Example Sentences

In a place like Prospect Park, if a beaver were to dam up a creek, those creeks could flood, submerging nearby trails and amenities.

From Slate • Aug. 31, 2023

I hope this isn’t the kind of benefit of the doubt that is only extended to certain people, or I’ll really be up a creek.

From Washington Post • Feb. 11, 2022

I did everything right, I supported myself, I followed the rules, and yet here I am up a creek without a paddle.

From Los Angeles Times • May 2, 2020

“We’d be up a creek, literally, without a paddle. We’re glad it’s working out this way.”

From Washington Times • Jan. 26, 2020

He proceeded down the river on which we are encamped into Meriwether Bay; from whence he passed up a creek three miles to some high, open land, where he found a road.

From Oregon and Eldorado or, Romance of the Rivers by Bulfinch, Thomas